ust as Morgan, that Achilles among pirates, transformed
himself from a buccaneering scourge to a quiet colonist, and spent,
without remorse, around his domestic hearth the millions gathered in
blood by the lurid light of flames and slaughter.

Since the death of Napoleon, circumstances, about which the author must
keep silence, have still farther dissolved the original bond of this
secret society, always extraordinary, sometimes sinister, as though
it lived in the blackest pages of Mrs. Radcliffe. A somewhat strange
permission to relate in his own way a few of the adventures of these men
(while respecting certain susceptibilities) has only recently been given
to him by one of those anonymous heroes to whom all society was once
occultly subjected. In this permission the writer fancied he detected a
vague desire for personal celebrity.

This man, apparently still young, with fair hair and blue eyes, whose
sweet, clear voice seemed to denote a feminine soul, was pale of face
and mysterious in manner; he conversed affably, declared himself not
more than forty years of age, and apparently belonged to the very
highest social classes. The name which he assumed must have been
fictitious; his person was unknown in society. Who was he? That, no one
has ever known.

Perhaps, in confiding to the author the extraordinary matters which he
related to him, this mysterious person may have wished to see them in
a manner reproduced, and thus enjoy the emotions they were certain
to bring to the hearts of the masses,--a feeling analogous to that of
Macpherson when the name of his creation Ossian was transcribed into
all languages. That was certainly, for the Scotch lawyer, one of the
keenest, or at any rate the rarest, sensations a man could give himself.
Is it not the incognito of genius? To write the "Itinerary from Paris to
Jerusalem" is to take a share in the human glory of a single epoch; but
to endow his native land with another Homer, was not that usurping the
work of God?

The author knows too well the laws of narration to be ignorant of the
pledges this short preface is contracting for him; but he also knows
enough of the history of the _Thirteen_ to be certain that his
present tale will never be thought below the interest inspired by
this programme. Dramas steeped in blood, comedies filled with terror,
romantic tales through which rolled heads mysteriously decapitated, have
been confided to him. If readers were not surfeited w